Today we celebrate the Feast Day of Saint Catherine of Siena. Our souls are like a garden of fruit trees. When we seek to do the Will of God, our souls will bear good fruit. How to we seek His Will? It is by listening to Him through prayer and silence and by united our crosses to the Cross of Jesus.
Have you ever walked through an apple orchard with a little child carrying a basket? There is such delight as the child pulls the apples from the trees and fills up the basket to overflowing. God delights in you. He wants to fill your soul so you will be overflowing with His love. As you draw close to Him, He will build virtues in your soul and He will set your heart on fire for Him.
God delights in YOU. Sit with Him as He fills your basket with the sweet and tender fruit which comes from His loving you and you loving Him in return.
Look at the sweetness of the tender fruit, the spotless Lamb, the seed sown in Mary as in a lovely field!...Our rational will has been made even stronger by God's union with humanity. I beg you in Christ gentle Jesus to lift your love, your affection, your desire up high. Take hold of the tree of the most holy cross and let it be planted in the garden of your soul, because this is a tree laden with fruits, the true solid virtues. For you see very well that beyond God's union with his creature, He has joined Himself to the Most Holy Cross. And He wills, He insists, that we too join ourselves to this sweet tree in love and desire. Then our garden cannot help producing sweet and tender fruit. Saint Catherine of Siena, Doctor of the Church
"I have called you friends because I have told you everything I have heard from My Father. It was not you who chose Me but I chose you and appointed you to go and bear fruit that will remain so that whatever you ask the Father, in My Name, He may give you. This I command you: Love one another." John 15:14-17 Today's Gospel
Keep me as the apple of Your eye; hide me under the shadow of Your wings. Psalm 17:8
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